I am trying to write about something that has preoccupied me for a number of years.This is the relation between Deleuze and Badiou.Their differences have been a major focus for recent debates over the future of philosophy.Their have been sustained and sometimes polemic treatments of Deleuze’s work which follow Badiou in alleging the neglect of the actual in favour of the virtual, the political and scientific in favour of the artistic, and the spatial in favour of the temporal.Responses to these critiques have sought to defend the Deleuzian virtual, showing its sophistication and complexity.This has led some to re-align Deleuze with thinkers able to shore up and deepen his account of the actual, the political and the spatial.Thus we might call upon Proust to show that Deleuze’s concern with time has to do with ‘encounters’ in the present and a plural conception of time, and not simply a fixation with time in its virtual wholeness and perfection.We might also call upon Kant as someone whose methods and concepts contribute to Deleuze’s account of the actual, leading him to account for experience fully rather than seeking to escape it in favour of the virtual and its superior dimensions.

In response to those who accuse him of failing to read Deleuze correctly Badiou makes a good point when he argues that a larger issue is at stake.Whether we read Deleuze well or badly, philosophy today has to face its most pressing challenges.For Badiou this concerns the contemporary spaces where truth can emerge through the work of the faithful.These potential empty spaces must not be ‘filled in’ by philosophy.We are retuned to the distinction between the fullness of being and the void.Does truth require empty spaces and rare events or is it to be found in the thick of the concrete proliferation of events?

I am trying to write about something that has preoccupied me for a number of years.This is the relation between Deleuze and Badiou.Their differences have been a major focus for recent debates over the future of philosophy.Their have been sustained and sometimes polemic treatments of Deleuze’s work which follow Badiou in alleging the neglect of the actual in favour of the virtual, the political and scientific in favour of the artistic, and the spatial in favour of the temporal.Responses to these critiques have sought to defend the Deleuzian virtual, showing its sophistication and complexity.This has led some to re-align Deleuze with thinkers able to shore up and deepen his account of the actual, the political and the spatial.Thus we might call upon Proust to show that Deleuze’s concern with time has to do with ‘encounters’ in the present and a plural conception of time, and not simply a fixation with time in its virtual wholeness and perfection.We might also call upon Kant as someone whose methods and concepts contribute to Deleuze’s account of the actual, leading him to account for experience fully rather than seeking to escape it in favour of the virtual and its superior dimensions.

In response to those who accuse him of failing to read Deleuze correctly Badiou makes a good point when he argues that a larger issue is at stake.Whether we read Deleuze well or badly, philosophy today has to face its most pressing challenges.For Badiou this concerns the contemporary spaces where truth can emerge through the work of the faithful.These potential empty spaces must not be ‘filled in’ by philosophy.We are retuned to the distinction between the fullness of being and the void.Does truth require empty spaces and rare events or is it to be found in the thick of the concrete proliferation of events?